I've
got to agree with BeAStooge here. If you've never seen any Laurel & Hardy silents, you're really missing something. I'd put "Liberty," "Double Whoopee" "Their Purple Moment" and the incomplete "Battle of the Century" at the top of the list of their best silent work. Stan Laurel made some very funny silents on his own, too, before Hal Roach teamed him with Babe Hardy. His "Oranges and Lemons" is full of wild physical comedy in a fruit-packing plant, and "Dr. Pickle and Mr. Pryde" is a great spoof of the Jekyll and Hyde story, with, of course, Stan playing both parts.
It's a toss-up for me between Keaton and Lloyd, but I'd give Buster a slight edge because of his superhuman acrobatic skills. There's an amazing stunt he does in a couple of his films where he puts one leg up on a table, and then, impossibly, puts the
other leg up, and seems to hang in the air for a moment before he falls on his rear. In "Coney Island" with Fatty Arbuckle, he does a full somersault from a standing start, flipping over backwards and landing firmly on his feet. If I hadn't seen him do it with my own eyes, I'd say that
nobody could have pulled that off.
I saw a Max Linder film recently ("Seven Years Bad Luck"), and I really liked it. He's not as well-known as any of the above silent comics, but he deserves to be rediscovered. It's hard to explain what he does, but his gags have a kind of flow and inevitable logic to them, with one leading seamlessly into the next.
And let's not forget Harpo Marx; he certainly qualifies as one of the great silent comedians, even though he only appeared in sound films. His tormenting of a fuming Edgar Kennedy in "Duck Soup" is absolutely classic.
Poll